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The phases in the analytic situation during three years of psychoanalysis were accompanied by alterations in some relatively constant biochemical patterns suggesting a significant correlation (8), (9). The fact that this patient was selected as a research subject which involved psychological tests before and after analysis as well as the daily collection of urine (and regular but less frequent venipunctures) colored the transference in a special manner. The effect on the therapeutic and scientific validity of the psychoanalysis will be discussed as a contribution to the methodology of this type of investigation.
The analogy between physiological homeostasis and ego function has increasingly attracted the attention of psychoanalysts during the past few years (17), (20), (22). Walter Cannon (2) originally suggested the term homeostasis to designate "the coordinated physiological processes which maintain most of the steady states in the organism." Cannon added that "the word does not imply something set and immobile, a stagnation. It means a condition—a contion which may vary, but which is relatively constant." In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud (12) presented the hypothesis that there is an attempt on the part of the psychic apparatus "to keep the quantity of excitation as low as possible or at least constant." Fenichel (7) emphasized that the ultimate aim for all these equalization tendencies is "the maintenance of a certain level of tension characteristic for the organism." Hartmann (16) recently commented that in the structural phase of his theories "Freud emphasized the biological functions of the ego" more definitely than